Quote from: apple pie on April 27, 2012, 12:12:24 PM
I'm past thinking too simply that we are "equal" without qualification. I like to think that we are equal but different.
To me, men and women are equal in that we are all able to do the same things freely.
But men and women are not completely equal. After all, if they really were completely equal, then
- you and I would be men, because men = women
- we wouldn't need to change how we look at all, since looking like a man = looking like a woman
- we wouldn't need to change our voice, because men's voice = women's voice
- actually, we wouldn't need to be MtF or FtM, because M = F
Clearly, these are not true. Men and women ARE different. Their brains are different. I don't see why we must assume their aggression levels must be the same, unless we are obscured by ideals of equality.
Similarly, cis women and trans women are different (otherwise we wouldn't need the two different labels etc. etc.), and there is no automatic reason to assume their aggression levels are the same either...
That's an interesting way to look at it.
And really, what you just expressed is a lot of the reason very many people transition in the first place. To exorcise themselves of the physical and biochemical characteristics associated with their birth sex and attain the physical and biochemical characteristics that come with their percieved sex. I deliberately chose not to use the word gender there because, well speaking personally for a moment, my gender is the one thing which
doesn't change with transition, everything else just falls into line with it.
Reading through people's thoughts and experiences here, it becomes clear that in a lot of cases, both the transguys and transgirls here
know what the hormones of their birth sex do to their body and mental faculties. I would venture that's why a vast majority are so intent to stop the production of testosterone in the case of the women, or estrogen in the case of the guys. And why they are so eager to begin taking the hormones associated with their internal gender.
The thing I wouldn't necessarily say for certain is that these biochemical processes and the physical characteristics play a major role in determining how aggressive someone is, or how passive. And, by the same token how masculine or feminine they are with regard to their personality type. I'll try to explain my reasoning.
Imagine a brother and a sister who were split up when they were very young, when their parents divorced. The little lad went to live with one, and the little girl went to live with the other. For the purposes of this, it doesn't matter which is which. Now, imagine that the little girl was raised in an environment where she saw her parent regularly be aggressive towards everyone and everything. Imagine she saw her parent, and their friends, regularly get drunk and fight with each other. Imagine she was teased and bullied at school, and then, when she told her parent about it, she was told that the best way to deal with it was to "grow a backbone and give the SOB's a taste of their own medicine". Imagine she protested and was beaten for being a 'wimp'. So she learned to toughen up, she thought it was okay to beat people up because it's what she'd been taught to do, and because she was scared not to because she would be seen as weak. Imagine if the only thing she'd been subjected to while growing up was the instilled belief that in order to get respect from people, they have to be afraid of you.
Now, imagine the little boy was raised in an environment where he was taught to respect people, where
his parent always took the time to listen to him, to sit him down and talk to him when he had a problem. Imagine they did things together; went to the zoo, to museums and theme parks or what have you. Imagine they sat down together of an evening to eat dinner, talking over the day. Perhaps his parent worked for a charity in their spare time and took him along to see how sometimes people have it rough in life and to teach him that wherever possible he should be patient with them, and listen to them, and do whatever he could to help them. Imagine this lad was also teased and bullied at school, but when he told his parent about it, they responded with something like "they have problems of their own that cause them to act that way, you should feel sorry for them, not angry at them." And then his parent took the issue up with the school, all the while instilling in the little lad the belief that in order to get respect from people, you should earn it by doing the right thing when you can, and trying to understand everyone else and how they're different to yourself.
Now, imagine both these kids back together twenty years later, as adults, having lived their lives according to the beliefs they grew up with and their expressions of those outlooks on life. Who would you say is the most aggressive?
As long winded as that was, the point I'm trying to make is that no matter what your biochemical makeup, a propensity for something isn't the same as an active expression of something. That testosterone may make someone more prone to aggression doesn't necessarily equate that everyone who's ever come into contact with it will inevitably turn out that way. I think personally that such traits are more habitual than inherent, and the
expression of such is far more dependant on your core beliefs and philosophies, how you were brought up and how you see other people rather than what you do because it's hardwired into you. And in that, men and women (both cis and trans) are all blank canvasses, just waiting to be painted with life experiences which illustrate them as individuals beyond simply their sex.
...
Not sure if that made sense but that's just my personal view.
